Employee Handbooks: 2020

The purposes and the scope of employee handbook policies and the practices are changing and expanding. From a siloed HR activity that creates insular documents concerned primarily with communicating the organizational work rules and benefits, employee handbook policies and practices have evolved into a critical component of an organization-wide management process that maximizes organizations' achievement of business objectives, enhances the value of their human capital, and minimizes legal risk.

To increase the effectiveness of their employment policies, organizations will have to:

• Enhance their business, operational, and legal intelligence to ensure they have identified the changing external and internal factors that affect their policies
• Increase internal stakeholder participation in the handbook development process to obtain greater employee commitment and operational alignment
• Establish new metrics to assess handbook policy and practices performance and measure the achievement of organization goals
• Implement internal controls that identify and alert management when employee handbook process failures occur

Thus employee handbooks will increasingly have to ensure that they are aligned with strategic and business objectives, are properly drafted, and are effectively implemented. Additionally they will have to:

• Enhance the employment brand
• Play a key role in recruitment and retention
• Enhance employee relations, employee morale, and productivity
• Contribute to uniform and consistent application, interpretation, and enforcement of organizational policies and rules
• Protect the organization against claims of improper employee/supervisor conduct
• Reduce the organization's exposure to employment related liabilities

From this perspective, employee handbooks will continue to play an important role in communicating with and providing information for employees.

Thus, employee handbooks will increasingly have to ensure that they are aligned with strategic and business objectives, are properly drafted, and effectively implemented. Additionally, employee handbooks will have to:

• Enhance the employment brand
• Play a key role in recruitment and retention
• Enhance employee relations, employee morale, and productivity
• Contribute to uniform and consistent application, interpretation, and enforcement of organizational policies and rules
• Protect the organization against claims of improper employee/supervisor conduct
• Reduce the organization’s exposure to employment related liabilities

From this perspective, employee handbooks will continue to play an important role in communicating with and providing information for employees.

• Key employee handbook issues in 2020
• A review of the NLRB’s recent memorandum on employee handbooks
• How organizations can reduce the gap between policy issuance and effective implementation
• Review the basics of employee handbook development 
• Discuss the expanding purposes and scope of employee handbooks
• Learn about employee handbook manual template and the dimensions of critical handbook policies
• Understand the framework of employee handbook audits activities

Employee handbooks have become a valuable tool in providing important information to employees. Handbooks describe what employers expect of their employees, and what employees can (should) expect from their employers. Handbooks provide critical information about their employers, workplaces, and HR policies and procedures, and describe how employees are expected to fit in.

Additionally, employee handbooks formalize the mutual expectations of organizations and their employees. In delineating these expectations employee handbooks create opportunities and risks for employers. Handbooks provide organizations with the opportunity to enhance the value of their human capital, make their organizations more competitive, and improve individual and organizational performance.

Conversely, handbooks can impede the achievement of business objectives, increase employment related liabilities, and reduce managerial prerogatives by making promises or commitments to certain procedural safeguards that the organization did not intend to make. As noted in the recent memorandum from the General Counsel of the NLRB: incorrectly designed employee handbooks can violate the law and have a “chilling effect” on employees’ activities.

Thus, employee handbooks increasingly provide for employers the opportunity to make their workforce more committed to and supportive of organizational goals. At the same time, they also provide the basis for employees’ legal action and can significantly reduce employees’ commitment to organizational success.

• HR Professionals
• Risk Managers
• Internal Auditors
• In-house Counsel
• CFOs and CEOs
• Management Consultants
• Other individuals who want to learn how to use develop and implement employee handbooks

Ronald L. Adler, president of Laurdan Associates Inc. has 42 years of HR consulting experience and has served as a consulting expert on work force, workplace, and HR management issues for The Wall Street Journal, HRMagazine, and other publications and newspapers across the country. Mr. Adler's research findings have been used by the Federal Reserve Board, the EEOC, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), insurers, and international organizations.

Mr. Adler is a frequent lecturer and author on HR management, employment practices, and UI issues. Mr. Adler is the author and editor of the Employment-Labor Law Audit (ELLA), the internationally recognized HR auditing and employment practices liability risk assessment process.

Mr. Adler is an adjunct professor at Villanova University where teaches a graduate level course in HR Auditing. Mr. Adler is also a certified instructor for The Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (CPCU) Society on employment practices liability and HR auditing issues and has conducted continuing education courses for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on HR management and HR auditing topics. Additionally Mr. Adler has served as an adjunct instructor at the Baltimore City Community College on workplace diversity and sexual harassment.

Mr. Adler is an appointee to State of Maryland's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Oversight Committee and previously served as an appointee to the State's UI Funding Task Force, the UI Advisory Committee, and the state's Workforce Training Initiative. Mr. Adler has served as a moderator at the State of Maryland's Annual Human Relations Conference and at the state's Annual Small Business Conference.